Yahoo!!!!!!

Q. What’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys and the Hewlett-Packard board of directors combined?

A. I don’t know, but former Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson gives it the old college try (heh!) and comes very close.

In case you don’t know how to use search engines and/or you’ve been living under a rock, here’s the story in a nutshell. The details may shock you. This exposé will pull back the curtain and expose the disturbing realities of human behavior. Like lifting that rock up and out of the soil, the potato bugs and grubs are about to scatter.

There once was a man who wanted a job. And on that man there was a resumé. And on that resumé there was a lie. And on that lie there was a flea. (Oops. I went one too far.)

Yes, this is the age-old story of the American dream, because, yes, that man got the job. He was a bootstrapper who set his sights on the prime time. He pulled the trigger and got er’ done. Do or do not. There is no try. Bring home the bacon and fry it in a pan.

It has been reported “that for years, [Scott Thompson] falsified his credentials, claiming that he had degrees in computer science and accounting from Stonehill College outside Boston, when in fact he graduated with an accounting major in 1979, at a time when the college only taught a single computer science course and didn’t even offer a computer science degree[.]” Source: Forbes.com.

What’s the big deal? Everyone does this, right? That’s why I carefully chose the phrase “American dream.” Although, to be totally accurate, this sort of thing should probably be known as The Earthling Dream or The Homo Sapiens Dream.

Tom’s Law #42
When someone else does something wrong, they get millions of dollars. If I do the exact same thing I end up rotting in jail.

When the lie on his resumé was discovered, Scott Thompson initially responded by apologizing about the “error” and sending an email to Yahoo! employees that he wouldn’t resign. A few days later Thompson said he wasn’t the source of the erroneous information and blamed it on a headhunter firm. They denied it. Yahoo! then announced that Thompson was out and announced an interim CEO. Thompson then announced that thyroid cancer was part of his decision to resign.

Wow. In only seven days he went from “won’t resign” to “it’s because of the thyroid cancer.” I know he lied on his resumé but I’m still having a hard time believing what he says.

So Thompson resigned. He takes with him a $1.5 million bonus and $5.5 million in restricted stock that he received from Yahoo! when he was hired. Not too shabby for less than six months on the job.

Yahoo! denied him “severance,” though. (A highly theoretical word in my experience.) You got to hand it to them. They really know how to hurt a guy. He only walks away with $7 million. Remember that next time or we’ll be even more harsh and give you $30 million. Then what the fuck will you do?

Me? I’m shocked shitless that he was held accountable for his lie at all. This is a rare moment and one that I will savor. Too many people lie and get away with it. In fact, that’s the primary principle in one of my economic theories that states concepts like capitalism, free markets, macro economics and personal responsibility only have meaning in terms of lies and fraud.

Scott Thompson was merely the latest in a long line of proud CEOs at Yahoo! He was preceded by a CEO named Carol Bartz. As far as I know Bartz didn’t lie on her resumé but she did bring a certain flair to the position that happens to be right up my alley.

When brought on board she initially said that Yahoo! needed “some friggin’ breathing room.” (My emphasis added.) The use of the word “friggin'” right off the bat was very intriguing. Then she said she was going to make Yahoo! “kick some butt.” Phrases like these must be some sort of elite CEO jargon.

Later, when Bartz instituted secrecy blackouts within the company, she was famously quoted as saying that she “would drop-kick to fucking Mars” employees who leaked information to the press.

In May 2010 she was interviewed and the first question was, “How the fuck are you?” (That is one KICK ASS interview question!) I think the interviewer may have been having a spot of fun at her expense. She replied, “Is that appropriate?” But later, after she became displeased with criticism of the Yahoo! business model (isn’t that an oxymoron?) she terminated the exchange by telling her interviewer to “fuck off.”

I think I’m love, but dammit, she’s already married. And so am I. Maybe in some parallel universe, eh?

They say that a company’s culture flows from the top, right? Just like bullshit flows downhill, too.

A study published by the GOA of the United States in 2004 found that 28 out of 463 “senior-level” federal employees had “degrees from diploma mills and other unaccredited schools.” The report also claimed that the number of questionable degrees reported was an “understatement.”

Ya think?

Even worse, the federal government helped fund the fraud by making payments of $169,470.74 for “fees” and “expenses” related to the degrees on behalf of federal employee students. Note that these amounts are based on data provided by two out of four schools that choose to respond to GOA requests for records. The actual number would be even higher.

Again I feel compelled to shout out, “Yahoo!”

At times during the Scott Thompson scandal the data on his resumé was described as a “flaw” or as “padding.” Fuck that shit. Let us forgo the euphemisms and call it by its true name: Lies.

I personally know a guy who told me that he lied on his resumé. Why he chose to reveal this juice tidbit to me remains a mystery. Perhaps it has something to do with power. What good is power if the people you are powerful over aren’t even aware of it?

He came to the United States from another country. Let us call it Elbonia. When he applied for a job he lied about having a degree from an esteemed institution of higher learning in Elbonia. Perhaps because the degree was all the way in Elbonia, no one bothered to check it out and he got the job.

This was a big well-known beloved company. He did well and worked his way up the ladder. (Yes, acknowledge that he had to earn it. But it is still based on a lie.) Then he made laterally jumps to other companies within the field, always working ever higher each time he moved. Now he’s the Senior VP at a major company in a major field. I’m not sure why I bother to anonymize here. Why protect him? I don’t know. I’m nothing if not a schmuck.

Meanwhile I still await for someone, maybe even a conservative, to comment on Mediocre Fred and his status/fate within our current societal context. You remember Fred, don’t you? He’s one of the little minions that are, unfortunately, required so that rich and powerful can get their due. Someone in our society has to actually do something of value, don’t they?